#23: your monthly microfiction
wherein Lady Compton's maid gets revenge
It’s the last day of November1, which means your favorite monthly infusion of microfiction and visual art has arrived!
Today we’ll be digging into…
💌 this newsletter’s recent facelift,
💌 the voting results for this month’s prompt and next month’s historical topic,
💌 the art I mailed patrons,
💌 and some creative updates.
Enjoy!
🌞 A month in: a new (old) Substack
Today marks the third installment of our new and improved Substack. Thank you wildly and breathlessly to everyone who’s supported me up to this point - and a particular thank you to my friend and wild talent Alexandra Amick, who gave me the advice to narrow my focus.
From here on out, you can expect the following to arrive on the 10th, 20th, and 30th, respectively:
✒️ A juicy article about a historical mail topic voted for by you
✒️ Vote City, where you’ll choose the microfiction prompts and the next month’s historical deep dive, plus suggest future topics
✒️ Your monthly themed microfiction and a roundup of art I mailed to patrons
Personally, I think this new approach has been fucking great. It feels fulfilling and focused. But I want to know your thoughts. You into it, or do you have an idea for fine tuning? I’m all ears!
🗳 The votes are in
Patrons and subscribers voted for this month’s postcard-fiction prompt:
Action: petting a horse
Word: flaunt
The fiction’s core theme is this month’s historical mail dive - Lady Elizabeth Compton’s lengthy list of demands to her husband. If you haven’t yet, give it a read (or listen to Olivia Colman’s hilarious rendition) before reading the microfiction:
#21: The demands of Lady Elizabeth Compton
The past few years, our cultural conversation has finally begun to shift. There’s less of an expectation that women to play by the rules of men in order to be taken seriously. Women and femme bbs are pretty much over the fiction we’ve been fed: that to be intellectual, to be worthy of rights, to deserve to be taken seriously, you’d better not be caught …
👒 The story: Lady Compton’s maid fucking hates Lord Compton
This month’s postcard was only 3”x5”, so every word counted, even more than usual.
I wrote this from the perspective of one of Lady Compton’s maids, who knows all about Lord Compton’s multi-year spending spree and just can’t let that slight against her precious Lady slide.
Here’s the handwritten version:
Aaaannd here’s the transcription:
My lady says it’s in the past, but I resent Lord Compton all the same. He’s just sat her beneath the same tree as always - enough of a ride from the manor, he thinks, to satisfy her, but near enough for him to venture into London come evening.
Lady Compton’s mouth quirks down and only I know it means she’s unhappy. It’s the face she made upon learning I didn’t celebrate my birthday this year. The next day, she gifted me a pearl necklace, laughing as if it were a trifle, which of course, for her, it was. I’m wearing it now, as I do most days.
Lord Compton’s blathering about gambling again.
Casting him a look, Lady Compton rises to pet her favorite horse. Our horses’ path bowed the swaying grasses, cleaving the field in two. Lord Compton joins her, leaving me to set up their wine and cakes alone. Fortune must be smiling on me today.
“Really, darling,” he says, “What’s the point of wealth if you don’t flaunt it? Heaven knows you do plenty of that, yourself.”
Neither notices me fetch a tincture from my skirts, something Cook fixed me (she hates how Lord Compton pinches her bum). I tipple some drops into his cup - Cook swears it’ll suffice - then swirl the goblet, coating the inside. One can hardly notice its extra sheen.
Lady Compton gives a laugh. “Well, it is my money, my sweet.”
He takes her hand, drawing her back to the blanket. My palms sweat, but I stand aside holding the wine, a perfect picture of an attending maid. My Lady wrinkles her nose, but sits with him all the same.
“Technically, it’s mine.” He pats her hand. “I’ll be taking your carriage tonight.”
My Lady frowns again, braiding blades of grass. I know she wants to say yes, the wealth is vast, but it should’ve been hers to manage after enduring her father’s abuse - something Lord Compton knows.
She only smirks. “Yes, but darling, I earned that carriage.”
It’s his turn to frown. He snaps for me to pour his wine and I gladly oblige. The tincture’s sheen disappears in his drink. I fill my Lady’s untainted cup and wait.
Time passes. He’s chatty. The sun moves. Did I do enough? Shadows shift on the horizon and I finger the tincture in my pocket.
And then - Lord Compton’s stomach gurgles. And gurgles again. He staggers to his feet, pale with panic. A stench clouds their little feast.
“Right,” he manages. “I feel -” he clutches his stomach.
Cook was right - a perfect dose to send him shitting for days. He mounts his horse with a wince and gallops full speed for the manor without saying goodbye.
I stifle a laugh behind my hand as he disappears over a hill. The breeze clears the air and it smells sweet with grass once more.
My Lady’s mouth quirks down again; she’s alone on the blanket.
I venture to speak. “I suppose, my lady, that means he won’t be going out tonight.”
A pause. Then my Lady looks up at me, bright as autumn, and laughs.
Did she go overboard or did he deserve it? You decide.
Now it’s your turn! Write your own take following the prompts and email it to me, post it in the comments, or share it on your local street corner! Reading y’all’s takes makes my heart full every single month. Thank you for trusting me with your art <3 Let’s keep it going.
🎄 Next month’s theme
Folks are feeling the holiday spirit! Subscribers and patrons chose next month’s theme, and we’ll be exploring…
🎄the history of letters to Santa🎄
History’s a weird place, so rest assured, this’ll be anything but your grandma’s Christmas tale (unless your grandma rules, then I hope it is everything like your grandma’s Christmas tale).
🎨 A month in postcard art
I love my houseplants. And while I’ve been deep in the forest of hyper-meticulous oil painting and novel/screenplay editing, I find myself called to make art that’s looser and more open to interpretation.
So, I wrote my patrons a poem and set it to a single-line drawing of a houseplant I love:
These are dark times, and everyone - including that potted plant you got on clearance at the grocery store last year - could use your love and warmth.
🌍 Updates in my creative world
I finished draft five of my novel! I plan to query agents come January. A few readers are working their ways through it, including my editor friend Ally, who I hired for the task. You only get one shot pitching your novel to top-tier agents, and I love my characters and their bizarre little lives so much, I’m doing whatever it takes to share them with the world. Thankfully, Ally is amazing and one helluva writer herself, which you can see here:
I’m on my second draft of my screenplay, a psychological thriller set in mid-90s Moscow. It’s flowing out of me and I couldn’t be happier.
I’m restructuring my Patreon. Sometimes being interdisciplinary is a curse. I want to offer you novel excerpts and custom songs and oil paint commissions and handmade postcards and prints. That wildflower sprawl, though, dilutes the biz end of things if it’s all mashed in one venture. From now on, my Patreon will focus exclusively on snail mail, voting rights for the newsletter, and oil painting commissions2.
My website will have a shop by the end of December! Keep on the lookout for updates to buy stationery packs and prints :).
I’m part of the Pemberton County Animation Co-op and have been hard at work with the team on The Gilmore Show, a news show led by a leftist, swamp-dwelling anchor (who’s also a gator). A script I wrote will be out soon and I made the analog background. With the co-op, I’m also making experimental stop motion for a project based off Corey Hill’s Pushcart-nominated story The Crows Outside.
💭 Whaddya think?
Let me know your thoughts about this restructuring, the story itself, or any hopes you got for the month ahead as a fellow artist, history buff, and snail mail freak.
All my love and stamps forever,
Nikita, your snail mail sweetheart <3
How. Fucking how.
Are oil painting commissions too tangential? What do you think? Also, want an oil painting? Hmu!